Apple has vaulted to number one in worldwide mobile-computing market share in the fourth quarter of 2010 – leapfrogging both HP and Acer – thanks to the surging popularity of its "magical and revolutionary" fondleslab, the iPad. At least that's the word from one research outfit.
"While we anticipate increased competition in the …

What next

Almost time!

Soon the Apple platforms, especially OSX, will be ripe for the virus and malware markets to pick up and start picking holes to find those important weaknesses! Then we'll see how good the security is on Apple kit!

( Oh and I own 4 Mac's myself, I'm just a realist and accept that OSX is no worse or better than Windows and certainly don't drink the Rev. Jim Jobs Kool-Aid! )

Virus proliferation

It's funny that people genuinely believe Mac/Linx/UNIX's security must be the result of security by obscurity. The security comes from the OS creator's worldview. Operating systems that have multiuser lineages will inherently have greater security than those developed from a single-user, not networked history. UNIX and its derivatives (Linux, Mac OSX, etc.) limit the user to a specific set of resources, directories, applications without limiting the user experience. Those functions, files, applications to which a user is authorised operate precisely as the permissions allow while great restrictions are applied to everything else. Basically, restrict everything that isn't explicitly allowed.

Windows and Mac OS 9.x and below operate under the premise that the system user should have unfettered access to everything at all times. Viruses/trojan horses can proliferate because all is permitted except that which is explicitly forbidden. It's the "you can opt out, but we'll just turn this on for you" mentality that exists in Facebook as well.

The evidence does not support the obscurity argument. At the launch of OS X ten years ago, the Mac's share of the PC market was around 3.5%, which is a little less than half of today's, yet there are somewhere around 100 identified viruses that attack OS 9.x.x and below, but fewer than five bona fide OS X viruses/worms. There are certainly weaknesses to any OS, but the core weakness to Windows is the mentality of its origin. Windows 7 has finally improved the situation to some extent, but still defaults to a userstate with full control.

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This message contains the linux virus. Please mail it to your contact lists, then use superuser permissions to delete all your data :)

this is what

Also still plenty of improvements to come with device integration. Wireless sync over wifi must be coming soon?

appleTV could function like a wireless HDMI, which would be neater than a clunky port. (and more 'apple')

I think the next market disruption is the telecoms. Imagine a gigbit 'fat pipe' superfast broadband connection: Hi def video, phone calls, web based office and email apps. With this bandwidth, you would have plenty to share for roaming phone calls.

Really fast connections are going to arrive in the next 10 years. Would you need an expensive phone contract then? You could always just share with a service like fon.

Re: What Next?

Take over MS and pensions off Windows on day

Yeah we can dream can't we?

I'd love to ditch Windows but there is far too many Development apps that only exist on Windows. W7 is a real PITA. Well I was until I switched everything back into Classic mode. Thanks god for Quick Launch.

You can make numbers say anything you want

Notebooks are hardly on a par with tablets/pads particularly when you consider Cupertino products are crippled in both content and their use.

No one tells the millions of owners of non-fruit products what they can and cannot do so comparing them as whole genres is pretty pointless.

It's like Michelin, BF Goodrich or Goodyear counting rubber wheels for tea dolleys and claiming their production was more than a competitor. Or auto manufacturers counting pick-up trucks as passenger vehicles.

Still analyst Richard Shim and DisplaySearch have maintained their positions on the free sample, special access and by invitation only presentations which really throws the value of the information into doubt.

@ JaitcH

"No one tells the millions of owners of non-fruit products what they can and cannot do..."

But if the user's iPad/Macbook/Apple-flavoured tool of choice does everything the user wants it to do, and does it with a lot more style than the rest of the market, who cares? I gave away my IBM-compatible crud and bought Mac kit because it did what I needed it to do, but with the added benefit of style and ease of use. I write and design stuff for print, mostly, and I don't often play games, have never written my own applications, don't feel the need to add blue lighting to my CPU, and my Macs suit my needs perfectly. Do I care that they also happen to be shiny and look fantastic? Actually, yes, I do - and so do my clients when they see them. Apple kit is gorgeous and good to use, but the rest of the world's manufacturers don't seem to have learnt those important lessons about style. I've seen a couple of tablets recently and they both at first glance look like iPads. Do these manufacturers have no ideas of their own or do they have to reply upon Apple to give them the lead all the time?

Two of the few people I know well who don't use Apple kit, are my in-laws, who have a Dell PC because I gave it to them. Pretty cruel, huh?

Apple's numbers are up, sure, although if they're as high as Shin, or Shim - The Reg uses both - says they are, who can tell? Steve Jobs is quite probably the least likeable guy on the planet, but the gear his company makes is, despite occasional hiccups, too cool to ignore.

first-mover advantage?

I thought PC makers had been attempting to sell tablets now for a decade or more? Apple were by no means the first mover, however you probably make a case that they were the first mover to not make an utterly crap product I suppose.

Nokia are number one

Nokia are the number one mobile computing company - it's unclear why tablets that run a phone OS are included, when smaller (hence, more mobile) smartphones are not.

And when Apple's share inevitably falls due to the arrival of many Android tablets, are we going to have endless doom and gloom articles (even if they're still the alleged number one)? That's how it's always reporteed for Nokia, after all...

Hand up

So where in tarnation are all these iPad beaters, the notion ink in particular. With the recent rise in even more Apple evilness I'm starting to feel a bit dirty owning an iPad... I would (and will) sell it, but only when something better comes along.

I want to support any company other than Apple but they're not making it easy for me.

iPad mobile computing?

Well, let's face it, if the iPad is a mobile computer, then what would make the iPod touch not a mobile computer, and to that extent the iPhone? If so surely Apple took this title years ago!

What i would like to see apple do now, is a dual boot laptop (iOS and OSX) with a touch screen, that can be manipulated to be a tablet. The best of both worlds :) You can boot into iOS as a tablet in order to play Angry Birds, or which ever game of choice you wish to play (well, lets face it, rarely do i ever see an iPad used for anything different!), then boot up into OSX as a laptop to actually do some work.